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Thursday, February 28, 2008

What We Write About

Remember being in school and having to bring in current event news clippings? Did you loathe these assignments? How would you describe your awareness level of current events today? Do you regularly read the paper, news blogs, watch news programs or ipodcasts? Do current events impact your writing?

5 comments:

I regularly read newspapers and their websites, I also read The Ecologist magazine. Current affairs often impact my poetry, specially environmental issues. I am not blogging about the US elections but would do so if I were from the US

I think environmental issues most often influence my writing. I do read and listen to newspaper, news programming, and of course The Daily Show. I have a soft spot in my heart concerning issues of poverty and environment.

I keep my ear to the ground in different ways. I listen to what my sons talk about, especially social issues. My husband is a journalist, and reads several newspapers a day, so I rely on him to keep me up to date with major political trends.

I'm mostly concerned with human rights and the humane treatment of animals. Of course this means the wellbeing of the planet is involved.

From what I've read here, Susan, you have a strong social conscience, which inspires me.

I like Nikki Giovani's way of incorporating history and politics into her poems. She makes it personal, and not a tract.

current events do offer a muse, but they are events that occur in my immediate, almost private world. the way a wind tangles itself in bare oak limbs. a coffee pot's perk. my poems start in the my everyday and hopefully rise as poetry allows.

Daily Quote

"All of us have a God in us, and that God is the spirit that unites all life, everything that is on this planet. It must be this voice that is telling me to do something, and I am sure it's the same voice that is speaking to everybody on this planet - at least everybody who seems to be concerned about the fate of the world, the fate of this planet." ~Wangari Maathai